


Your Constellation Touched My Earth

by HopeNotSeen



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark Union, Expanded Force Lore, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Happy Ending, I don't care about the First Order/Resistance conflict though it does get resolved, I write this story when I'm avoiding my other one, Mutual Pining, Not Canon Compliant - Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Prophecies, Psychometry, Resurrection, Rey is Not a Palpatine, Slow Burn, Some of the Knights of Ren are female, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, That's Not How The Force Works, The Force Ships It, Trigger warning: nearly everyone has PTSD, Vader Immortal Tie-Ins, World Between Worlds, Your coming together will be your undoing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2020-12-26 23:49:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21109208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeNotSeen/pseuds/HopeNotSeen
Summary: After the events of The Last Jedi, the First Order quickly secures control over thousands of systems and the Resistance becomes a directionless group coming to terms with their defeat. Jaded and numb, Rey flails to find meaning in her life. Her bond with the Supreme Leader is the only remaining thread to chase in her quest to understand her past and future.





	1. Chapter 1

The First Order reigned.

After the slaughter of the Resistance and the months of desperate fleeing that followed, Leia’s words were left empty. “We have everything we need,” she had told Rey with confidence. But it had not been true.

Everywhere they fled, looking for help, they were turned away or turned in. Their faces flashed on large displays in every cantina and place of commerce in the galaxy. Each one of them had a price on their head. They were wanted by the new Supreme Leader for the assassination of Lord Snoke.

As they hid, a new order swept across the galaxy. The legend of Luke Skywalker’s defiance on Crait became a treasured tale, and nothing more. Planet after planet adopted the new government of the First Order. There was little bloodshed, and there was no resistance.

Eventually the two dozen or so ex-Rebels and Resistance fighters who had survived Crait settled on a tiny planet with little industry, hoping to slide unnoticed into the busy metropolis crammed on the edge of a cliff overlooking a tumultuous sea.

One afternoon Rey found herself staring at the waves below, perched on a grimy balcony attached to a run-down building that had become their home. Noises came from within that stirred Rey from her reverie. Before she could turn to go back inside she heard a voice at the door.

“Rey,” he hissed. “You shouldn’t be out there without your covering.”

Rey sighed and turned to face Finn, who pulled her inside and slammed the door shut. The sounds of the waves instantly muted.

“I’m sorry,” she said, glancing down at her dingy grey garments and palming her neck bare absentmindedly. “I like feeling the spray on my face.”

Finn smiled and wrapped her in a hug. “I know,” he said .

When he withdrew, he picked up her discarded headwrap from a nearby chair and tossed it at her, pulling his own cowl over his head.

Rey wrapped the cloth around her face until every inch of skin was covered except the freckled swatch around her eyes. This she covered with a pair of googles. A memory flashed before her eyes and she smiled at how similar this garb was to her work gear on Jakku.

“There’s more to unload,” Finn said, and then he turned to descend the stairs that led to the living quarters below.

Rey followed him.

A lively crowd gathered outside the front of the building. Every spare hand helped unload the speeders with their latest supply run. Each figure was consumed by swathes of cloth in shades of grey and green, completely indistinguishable from the locals who inhabited their host village. Yet here and there Rey caught the flash of a grin from a former ace pilot or a peek under a hood which revealed the irreverent buns that had once been a Resistance fashion statement. In every eye there was strain and a dullness that set in more strongly with each passing month that they were there.

Another speeder pulled up, heavily laden with what looked like piles of metal junk. Rey knew better. She greeted Poe as he jumped to the ground and helped him drag loads of junk into the lowermost room. There Rey and a few of the others who were good with their hands would spend evenings sitting and repairing what they could to sell.

“Connix said the fishing was good today,” Poe said over his shoulder as he dragged his load towards a worktable and began throwing pieces on top of it.

“Good, my hands are raw from taking apart this junk,” Finn replied, coming up behind them with another load of scrap. “Maybe we’ll get a break.”

“Doubt it,” said another coming up beside them. “You know how things are.”

“We have 22 mouths to feed and a baby on the way,” said Leia, who just joined them in the room, unwrapping her headscarf and throwing it on a table. “And none of you stubborn folk will be sensible and leave me, so here we are.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Poe insisted, his voice rising with frustration.

“There’s nowhere to go,” Finn added, laying a hand on the spirited ex-starfighter's shoulder.

Leia’s face softened and she fiddled with her gloves for a moment. “You are always welcome with me,” she said finally. “You know what I mean. Staying together just makes this hiding thing that much more difficult, that’s all.”

Rey threw her load of junk down and went to grab another armful, nimbly dodging the people coming in and out of the door with their treasures.

The truth was, things were pretty good with the First Order in control. As long as you weren’t an ex-Resistance fighter.

Later that evening, they all sat around a table sipping drinks and visiting with each other. As usual, the most consistent topic was the First Order.

“I won’t give up,” Poe said, slamming his drink down on the table hard enough that its contents sloshed out onto the dirty tablecloth. “Not until there’s nothing left of me.”

“I heard the slaves on Zychar were freed by the First Order,” said one timid voice from the end of the table. “And stars, we know there’s been less bloodshed the last two years than in the last forty.”

“They were bought by the First Order,” said Finn, who leaned forward across the table and lowered his voice. “They are still slaves, they just changed masters.”

Rey shifted in her seat uncomfortably. She hated when the conversation lingered on the First Order, and it nearly always did. After enduring a few more rounds of grim news and brash promises, she stood and slipped away quietly.

She nimbly ascended the rickety stairs and headed for her small bedroom tucked away to the right of the balcony, relishing the blanket of quiet night that had settled around her away from the others. Once in her room, she threw herself down on her cot and curled up next to the dirty window, so close her breath fogged the glass. Outside she could hear the gentle booming of music coming from a distant cantina, and she could see stars peeking out from the stormy sky.

After her breath slowed and evened, she reached out to the Force and began to meditate on the light, as Leia recently taught her, letting it surround and penetrate her being.

Every night she reached out to the Force in the hope of warding off the visions that were becoming increasingly intrusive with each passing day. Often they occurred at night, waking her in violent terror as she struggled to regain control over her mind. More and more often they occurred in the middle of the day, causing her to stop dead any task she was attending to before she could wrestle her own mind back to the present.

The source was clear: It had to be Kylo Ren. Their frustrating connection had remained despite Rey’s desperate wishes, and it seemed the man could not keep his dark thoughts to himself, but had to fling them across the galaxy only to clobber her with them. In bitterness Rey had decided that if he knew what he was doing to her, he wouldn’t care.

Oddly enough, the AT-AT she lived in on Jakku appeared more often than any other image, yet the scene that accompanied it would always be nearly unrecognizable to Rey. Torrents of black rain pelted the landscape and threatened to drown her old home, while wild cracks of black lightning rent the sky into pieces. These visions puzzled Rey the most. Weather like that had never occurred on Jakku, not in a thousand years. But the most disturbing vision of all was of a man shrouded in black.

Sometimes he was a figure Rey had come to recognize as Darth Vader, crouched in what appeared to be pain and shaking his fist at the sky. Other times the figure would turn to look toward her and she would cringe to see Kylo’s face looking back at her. At times she feared he actually saw her, but before she could say a word or reach for him, the vision would snap shut and she would be left gasping for breath with a roll halfway to her mouth at breakfast.

The others seemed oblivious to Rey’s nebulous distractions, but she could not escape Leia’s keen motherly eyes. The ex-general’s concern for their adopted scavenger led her to offer some simple Force training. She seemed to take Rey’s despondency for homesickness.

“You don’t have to stay with us, Rey,” she once said while they sat on the floor of her room during meditation practice. “You can go home if you want. We can help you get a shuttle.”

Rey opened her eyes abruptly and stared at the aging woman. “Home?” she said.

She imagined her AT-AT bravely resisting the sands. She thought about the years of hunger, the persistent fear, and the engulfing loneliness. Though Leia had extended this offer several times, Rey had always rejected it. This time she felt herself inexplicably nodding. “Yes, I want to go home.”

***

Finn protested her leaving. She fended him off with promises of return and made-up stories of having “business to attend to,” but they were all lies. She knew in her heart she would not return.

As she boarded the shuttle in the dirty port on the edge of the cliffs, her heart broke at the thought of never seeing him again. For the first time since arriving on this frustrating planet, she was thankful her face was fully covered. Her tears remained unseen.

A week later, the grimy cargo ship she took to Jakku touched down upon the sands a mere click away from Unkar Plutt’s junk monopoly. Rey suppressed a wave of nausea at the sight of his filthy hovel. Something was pulling her back to this place. To her past.

This planet spoke of her pain, but it also spoke of her self. She didn’t know how to be Rey and be somewhere other than Jakku. Once she thought she could be a Jedi. She gave it a shot, but was left empty. She had to go back to the only thing she knew. She would once again be Rey of the desert. Child of the sands.

Rey unloaded her bags and shoved a handful of credits into the rude pilot’s hand. His complaint for more money fell on deaf ears as she turned and trudged toward the edge of Niima outpost. She barely took two steps before sand found the opening in her boots and worked its way in. Nothing had changed here, it seemed.

An hour-long march hid the settlement from her view and after another she spotted her home glinting in the sand. She paused at the opening to her AT-At and hoisted her staff higher across her back. She adjusted her bags as well and then stooped inside.

She slid down clumsily, pulling a wave of sand with her until her boots hit the familiar metal surface that she always considered to be her floor. She blinked in the dim, her eyes adjusting slowly to the scene.

Everything was as she left it. Her cookware was still neatly piled on her makeshift table. Her old doll was still nestled in a crevice of the AT-AT wall over what passed for her bed. She was half surprised that no other scavenger adopted her home in her absence. There was sand, sand everywhere. Small drifts lay upon every surface as if the dunes outside had sent in a colony, hoping to eventually swallow up her home entirely. They would have succeeded too, in time.

Rey unloaded her possessions, leaning her staff against the wall near the opening outside. She picked up her handmade broom and started sweeping. She made it all the way toward the back wall and then paused, looking up at it, her hair sticking to her face. Thousands of marks neatly etched into the metal filled her vision. She stared at them, only the sound of her breathing filing the room. Then she lay one finger over the gritty surface, and jumped back with a gasp.

As soon as her finger made contact with the cold metal, a flash of something else flooded her vision.

Kylo Ren again, but this time he was kneeling in front of her wall of marks, his own gloved hand pressed to the metal. She felt a burst of emotion, perhaps his. Then it was gone.

Her gaze focused upon her own hand outstretched in front of her, inches from the wall. She dropped her broom.

All at once the weight of being truly, utterly alone hit her. She sat on the floor and pulled her knees up to her chest and sobbed like she hadn’t in years. She shed tears for everything; leaving her new friends behind, losing Han, losing Luke, her bitter disappointment in Ben. She even let herself dwell for a moment on her parents. They were never coming back. She had never properly cried for any of those things, and against her will it all came out now in one dam break of emotion.

“Rey?”

The voice broke into her thoughts and startled her, and Rey lept to her feet. She turned to see a figure crouched over her AT-AT opening, blocking most of the sunlight streaming in. The figure was framed by a black cloak that looked absurd in the desert.

It was Kylo Ren.

Rey blinked and clutched her head. These visions were becoming unacceptably intrusive. She wondered if she was going insane. She wondered if she would eventually lose her ability to distinguish dream from reality.

Her eyes fixed upon his and she watched his expression soften oddly. He could see her. He was looking right at her. Suddenly embarrassed, she scrubbed a hand over her face to clear her tears.

Kylo extended a hand toward her, and she stared at it, fascinated by the pink flesh covering his bare palm, too soft and vulnerable to belong to the man who owned it.

Suddenly it dawned on her. This was real. He was really there.

“I need your help,” he said.

Barely registering his words, Rey stepped toward him. She placed her hand in his.

His fingers curled around hers as he stepped back and helped her climb out of the AT-AT. In seconds they were both standing in the blinding sun, hands still entwined. The desert winds whipped around them and tore at their clothes as sharp sand pelted them and made musical pings against the metal AT-AT.

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” Kylo said after a moment.

Rey squinted up at him. “I know,” she said with a tinge of sullenness. “We’ve been in hiding.”

“Not the Resistance,” Kylo said, shaking his head. His eyes never left her own, and Rey shrank under the attention. “Just you.”

“Me?” she said.

“I hoped I would find you here,” Kylo said. “I need you to come with me.”

Rey couldn’t quite decide if the tremor in his voice was eagerness or desperation, though after a moment she reasoned they were almost the same thing.

“Where?” she asked, thinking quickly. “Why?”

“It’s better to show you,” he said, clenching his jaw in a pitiful way. “Trust me. Please.”

As she struggled for an answer, a group of stormtroopers crested a far dune. They were clearly patrolling the area, but seemed unconcerned about the local their Supreme Leader had discovered.

“No one will harm you,” Kylo said, following her gaze toward the dunes. “You will be my guest.”

A fitful mood of recklessness descended over Rey. She was surprised to find that she felt very little anxiety over the prospect of going with Kylo. Her life was in shambles, a tangle of questions without answers and hopes that remained empty. What had she here on Jakku to hold her back?

She untangled her hand from his and ducked back into the AT-AT, reaching for her staff and her bags. She hastily slung all of her belongings across her back again and struggled back up into the sunlight.

“I’m ready,” she said, trying to stand tall.

Kylo nodded and cast a glance over her bags. He seemed to struggle with something, but after a moment he gestured toward the stormtroopers. “This way,” he said.

They set off across the dunes.

***

Once aboard the First Order shuttle, Rey was flooded with the anxiety she probably should have felt before agreeing to go with Kylo. He led her into a passenger area and a seat near a window. She perched on the edge of it, too distracted to bother untangling herself from her numerous packs.

“I’ll leave you here,” he said as she scanned her surroundings. “I have business to attend to. I won’t be long.”

Rey nodded. As he left the room, she heaved a sigh of relief and finally threw her packs on the floor along with her staff and slumped against the seat.

The passenger area was stark white and clean, but not unwelcoming. She eyed the exits suspiciously and then turned toward the window behind her. She could see her dusty planet sinking away beneath the ship as they slowly ascended into the outer atmosphere. Within minutes they escaped into the black of space, and then she felt a light jerk as they jumped into hyperspace.

She turned away from the window with a sigh, not wanting to make herself sick. She could feel her eyes turning heavy. It had been more than a rotation since she had slept, but she was not about to fall asleep alone on a First Order ship going who knows where. The constant hum of the ship engines and the faint musical beeping from various controls turning on and off were making it very difficult.

Finally, Kylo returned, and Rey sat up with a start as he entered the room. He was alone, to her relief.

“You look exhausted,” he said as his eyes raked over her. “I’m afraid we have no cabins aboard this shuttle, but you may want to sleep before we arrive at our destination.”

“And where exactly is that?” Rey asked, stifling a yawn.

“Mustafar,” Kylo said.

Rey frowned. “Never heard of it.”

Kylo ignored her and rummaged in a panel underneath the opposing seats. He pulled out a blanket and tossed it at her. She caught it and held it awkwardly. All of her survival instincts told her not to sleep out in the open on an unfamiliar ship – a First Order ship nonetheless. Yet she also wanted to have her wits about her when they arrived.

Kylo sat down on the seats opposite her and pulled out a datapad. At this, Rey inhaled sharply.

“You’re staying here?” she asked.

He jolted straight and began to lay his datapad to the side. “If it bothers you, I can go somewhere else.”

“No,” Rey said sharply, stumbling over her words as her ears grew warm with embarrassment. “I – you’re the only person I know. I don’t want to be asleep if… something happens.” She waved her hand in the air as she trailed off, leaving her vague fear of strangers threatening her while vulnerable in sleep unsaid. She grimaced at how little sense her explanation made, but Kylo seemed to understand and settled back into his seat.

“Sleep then,” he said, his eyes back on the datapad. “It won’t be a long journey. I’ll wake you when we arrive.”

Rey nodded and stared at him for another moment, wrestling with the desire to ask more questions. He ignored her, so she stuffed her pride somewhere deep and rolled herself up in the blanket tightly, turning toward the back of her seat. Within seconds she was sound asleep.

***

Low voices reached her ears, and she scrambled out of her foggy dreams to catch their words.

“Yes, Master,” said a female voice. “I will ensure this is done.”

“But how will you protect her once planetside?” said a male voice. “I believe her kind can be very sensitive to the conditions. She might take sick.”

“She has more strength than you assume,” replied a voice that sent pleasant waves down her spine. “And I believe our bond will offer some resilience.”

The female voice scoffed. “We have been steeped in the power of the dark since our youth, and it weighs on even us there. How can this lightsider handle it?”

Rey’s heart caught in her throat and suddenly she was fully awake.

These were Force users, she could now feel their presence in the Force radiating in the room behind her back. Fear and anger gripped her. With one smooth motion she sprung up off the seat, throwing the blanket to the side and calling her lightsaber to her hand, igniting it and crouching to face the strangers in defensive position.

Standing before Kylo were two figures swathed in black garments that had the look of uniforms. One was a small woman with dark hair swept back into a mass of braids. Geometric tattoos were sprinkled over her cheeks, giving her a beautiful but intimidating look. The other was a tall man who sported similar tattoos, but they cascaded down one cheek and disappeared beneath his collar. Both wore similar dark cloaks with an asymmetrical strap fastening them to their armor underneath their arm. Both of them had ignited red lightsabers and assumed defensive positions of their own.

“Knights,” Kylo barked, springing to his feet. “Put those away.”

The man and woman instantly extinguished their lightsabers and placed them on their belts.

“Sorry, Master,” said the man with a sheepish shrug. “She startled us.” He gestured in Rey’s direction but didn’t look at her. The woman, on the other hand, though she had put her saber away, continued to watch Rey with narrowed eyes.

For her part, Rey kept her saber in front of her, every muscle tensed and ready to spring into action. Her heart was pounding in her chest so hard it was a wonder they didn’t all hear it. Maybe they did.

“Rey,” Kylo said, turning his attention to her and stepping closer. “What are you doing?”

“Who are these people?” she said in a low voice, keeping her eyes on the strangers. The Force users.

Kylo drew a breath. “They are Knights of Ren,” he said. “My people. You can put your weapon down. They won’t hurt you.”

Rey shook her head and gripped her lightsaber harder. “What does that mean, your people? You – you lied to me. You never said anything about… other people like you.” Rey’s head was spinning. She didn’t know if they were Sith or something else, but they had terrible red lightsabers and they were First Order. They were threats.

Kylo stilled his forward motion and frowned at her, as if she was a puzzle to him. Then he turned toward the knights.

“Leave us,” he said softly. “We’ll meet in the citadel this evening.”

The two knights nodded and slipped out of the room, the door they exited from softly latching behind them.

Rey turned her attention toward Kylo again and lowered her saber, but did not extinguish it.

“That was not how I wanted you to meet them,” Kylo said, scrubbing a hand through his hair in an oddly boyish gesture. “I was going to tell you about them first. But they had an urgent report to make, and you were asleep….” He trailed off.

Rey took a deep breath and extinguished her saber, latching it on her belt again. She felt a little foolish now for her reaction, although she stubbornly maintained it had been a logical one. If anything was foolish, it was her agreeing to go with Kylo knowing so little about what he planned.

“There are ten,” Kylo said, breaking into her thoughts. “You will only see a few at a time, though. Most are scattered through the galaxy on important missions. Riatt and Siah are the only ones with me now. Once on Mustafar you will also meet Zuneh.”

Rey stared at him blankly. Ten of them. “I don’t understand,” she said faintly, more to herself than him.

“You will,” he said. “I will answer any questions you have. But you will meet them and understand them for yourself very soon.”

There was a subtle shift in the motion of the ship. Rey cast her eyes toward the window and realized they had left hyperspace.

“We are here,” Kylo said. “Gather your belongings. We will land in ten minutes. I have to go, but I will make sure no one disturbs you here. I will come for you when we arrive.”

He strode toward the exit on the opposite side of the room from where the knights had left and disappeared behind a door.

***

Rey stared at the planet below them in confusion. It looked like the whole surface was covered in some kind of liquid fire, but that was impossible.

When Kylo rejoined her moments later and led them towards the exit ramp, she questioned him on the surface.

“Lava,” he said. “It is rock so hot that it has melted, essentially.”

Rey shook her head. “How does that happen? And if the air is so hot, how can we survive it?”

“It’s not the air,” Kylo replied. His voice took on a light tone as if he had separated the mechanics in his mind from the situation they were in and was now only speaking academically. “The heat comes from deep in the planet’s core. The air is hot, yes, but the rock we stand on will shelter us from most of it.”

Never mind how that rock they stood on would not melt too, Rey thought. Before she could make a reply along those lines, the ship jolted and the ramp lowered to the sound of steam.

Kylo strode down the ramp at a brisk pace, and Rey nearly ran to keep up. Her boots slipped oddly on the polished and twisted rock beneath her feet. They arrived on a platform bathed in red light. A smooth black tower rose before them into the strangely dark sky.

The hair on the back of Rey’s neck stood up and she turned hastily to see the knights following on their heels. Panic rose in her and she gripped her lightsaber. Before she could do anything else, Kylo halted before her abruptly and spun around.

“Riatt, Siah, go ahead of us,” he said, gesturing to his left at the path that would lead them farthest from Rey.

The two knights bowed and circled around them, heading up the steps that led to the tower and disappearing from view.

“Calm your mind,” Kylo said, turning to Rey once they were out of earshot. “Your thoughts betray you. Everyone within a hundred clicks could hear your fear.”

Rey scoffed and stood up straighter, but before she could say anything, Kylo softened his voice and continued.

“I know this is an unfamiliar setting, and I have not given you a lot of information to go on. Soon you will know everything.”

“What are we doing here?” Rey asked. “What do you want of me?”

Kylo stepped closer to her until she was forced to lift her chin to keep eye contact. It could have been an intimidating gesture, but Rey felt no threat.

“I cannot speak of it openly here,” he said, so softly that she had to strain her ears to catch every syllable. “We are in danger. That is all I can tell you now.”

“We?” said Rey.

“You, and I,” Kylo said. “And my knights.” He paused, and furrowed his brow. “Do you trust me? Once I thought you did, though I did nothing to earn it then.”

Rey tried not to visibly shake. “I – I still do,” she said after a moment. “I must.”

“Why must you?” Kylo shot back.

She hated how he always asked questions of her that she didn’t know the answer to until he asked. She avoided knowing her heart that fully, and it rankled to have him so boldly plumb its depths. She glared at him. “I don’t believe you could ever harm me,” she said finally.

Kylo searched her eyes, his expression a controlled blank. “You are correct,” he said. Then he turned his back to her. “Come inside.”

They ascended the stairs toward the tower. Before large metal doors stood an array of stormtrooper guards who stood impassive as the Supreme Leader led the scavenger inside.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, this is a monster of a chapter. It also has the classic problem of needing to give your audience a lot of information to set up the story but not wanting it to turn into one giant info dump and not wanting your characters to simply devolve into spouting information at the audience. It was really hard, and I struggled a lot! Hope what I was able to come up with was at least decent. I'd be happy to hear any constructive criticism. :)

Rey woke up, disoriented. Her body didn’t seem to be able to obey her mind. All she could see was darkness, but after a few seconds of determined blinking, shadowy shapes materialized before her. Her head felt strange, as if it was stuffed with wool. The only other time she had felt like this, she had been knocked out and left for dead by a few depraved scavengers on Jakku. She came to on the sands, half covered by them, and had to dig herself out of her would-be grave. 

A spark of anger lit in her. She struggled against the weight holding her body down and sat up.

She was in a dark room. The only light came from the tall, narrow windows to her right. The pulsing red glow reminded her instantly of where she was. Then she remembered Kylo.

She sprang up, untangling herself from what she realized were blankets on a bed and made for the nearest door, her anger spiking in a way that mobilized her limbs like nothing else. If that no-good, father-killing sleemo had knocked her out like he had in the forest ages ago, and then had the audacity to place her in some bed as if she was a child, she was going to kill him. She really was.

Stepping through the door into a dark stone hallway doused her anger almost instantly. 

It stretched as far as she could see in both directions, the same strange twisted black stone that covered the floor, punctuated by nondescript metal doors identical to the one she stepped out of. A cold current of air pushed steadily through it. Rey shivered. 

She had no idea where she was or what she was doing here, and she was afraid. 

As she peered down the hallway, her hand brushed against her cold lightsaber at her hip, causing her to start.

At least he hadn’t taken her weapon. That was a point in his favor. She gripped its hilt without unhooking it and then closed her eyes. She knew how to defend herself. She knew she was never alone. She reached out to the Force and calmed her breath.

There. Rey could feel Kylo’s presence to her right, several hundred yards away. She set off down the strange hall. Her steps made uneven thuds as she slipped slightly against the twisted stone. As she neared her destination, she picked up the pace, until she was practically running. One swift turn through another unmarked door and then she halted.

He was kneeling with his back to her, a dark figure against the blazing red light streaming in the windows. Before him was a low table, upon which lay several strange objects. The room appeared to be some sort of storage area, but what filled the shelves and crates stacked along the walls was unrecognizable to Rey. She turned her eyes from the shelves back to Kylo. His posture struck her as odd. Was he studying the objects with intensity, or knelt in a position of worship?

Several long moments stretched between them before he started and looked over his shoulder at her, as if just noticing her presence. He stood, but not before picking up one of the objects before him and cradling it to his chest.

“How do you feel?” he asked. His face was completely shadowed.

Rey squinted to try to discern his expression, but it was no use. “Confused. What happened?”

“I should not have brought you here,” he said. “We won’t stay long. I did not anticipate how strongly this concentration of dark side power would affect you.”

“What do you mean?” Rey asked slowly, but flashes of what had happened flooded her mind before the words left her mouth. 

She remembered standing with Kylo as he gave directions to several officials in the entryway, waiting for him to be free to show her what they came for. She remembered feeling suddenly ill. It felt as if the gravity modulator on a ship was out of whack, and her chest tightened with an inexplicable panic. There were flashes of light and sound, and then she must have passed out.

“This is a world long used by Sith,” Kylo said, “a focal point for the dark side of the Force. For centuries acolytes have come here to worship it, to meditate upon it. You are a fish out of water.”

Rey fought back the tears that suddenly threatened her eyes. Then why have you brought me here, she wished to ask. But she had already asked that several times, and gotten answers ranging from nonexistent to impossibly cryptic. She would not ask again. She kept her silence in defiance and clenched her fists.

Kylo watched her impassively. After a moment he uncurled the hand clasped to his chest and looked at the object he cradled. She squinted, curious despite herself to see what he held.

“What is that?” she asked.

He took a deep breath and moved closer, holding it out to her. It looked to be a small piece of carved white stone. “Japor,” he said. “A rock native to Tattooine.” 

On impulse, Rey extended her palm. He placed it in her grasp. A twisted brown cord looped through a hole at the top. Swirls and lines darkened with age traversed the stone.

“Is it valuable?” she asked.

“Completely useless, except to one person who would burn down the whole galaxy to possess it,” he replied. At her questioning look, he elaborated. “After the tomb of his wife was looted by artifact hunters, Darth Vader destroyed many worlds looking for it, and many more looking for a way to resurrect Padme.”

Rey’s heart leapt curiously at the name, though she had never heard it before. Her mind raced, trying to make sense of what she heard. “I’ve heard tales about Darth Vader, but I didn’t know he had a wife.”

“My existence must be puzzling, then,” he replied, his voice tinged with amusement. “Yes, he had a wife. It was the threat of losing her that sent Anakin Skywalker to the Sith for assistance and plunged the galaxy into darkness all those years ago.”

“How did she die, then?” she asked. “He could not save her?”

“He was deceived,” he said with bitterness. “The Sith Lord he served never intended to save Padme. It was a ploy to enslave him with moral chains that could not be broken.” His eyes left the japor in her hand and found her eyes instead. “Once ensnared in a desperate net and in danger of losing everything, Anakin himself killed her.”

Rey flinched and pushed the trinket toward him. “Take it,” she said. 

His mouth pressed into a line, Kylo scooped it up and tucked it into his pocket. He then removed his gloves, tucked them into his belt and held his hands out to her, palms up. 

“Come with me,” he said.

Rey’s eyes darted between his hands and his face. “I wish you would stop saying that,” she said, with equal parts anger and desperation. “I’m with you now, and blast it, I’m really starting to regret coming here.”

She half expected him to get argue back, but instead he let out a small puff of air. She realized with wonder that he laughed. 

“I told you I need to show you,” he said, an amused glint in his eyes. “If you take my hands, we will go together. The Force that resides in both of us resonates with the dark power beneath the depths of this citadel. Together it is strong enough to take us to another place, a place most people never experience.”

Rey furrowed her brow. “What?” she asked, completely befuddled.

“A place where the Living Force and the Unified Force meet space and time, and all things are,” he said, his voice filled with a boyish enthusiasm. “They call it the world between worlds.”

Having no idea what he was talking about, her better instincts told her to turn around and march out of this castle, find a ship, and get off this forsaken planet. But as before on Jakku, a reckless feeling rose in her to match it. 

What had she to lose? She wasn’t afraid. Not of him. And somehow she knew she could not rest until she understood the puzzling tragedy that had haunted his family for generations and pulled her in like a whirlpool. Staring into his eyes and finding only earnest desire, she made her decision.

She took his hands roughly and started at the warm contact. Almost instantly, a light appeared beneath their feet. All around them, the previously dark and nondescript floor was suddenly illuminated by a series of interconnecting circles lit from below. The circles were scattered about in a pattern, the center of which lay directly beneath the two of them. Rey’s eyes darted back to Kylo and found him watching her intently, not a shred of surprise on his face at the strange turn of events.

As the light from the circles grew until they were awash in its glow, the walls of the room seemed to fall back and disappear, and soon they appeared to be on a desolate plain under an overcast night sky. Then circles suddenly disappeared as if blown out, leaving identical scorch marks in the ground where they had lain. The earth beneath their feet in particular was one large burned smudge. 

Kylo lowered his hands and then let go of hers. “Strange,” he said. “I’ve never seen a rocky plain here. It’s always been a forest when I come.”

She frowned at the admission he had been here before. “I thought you needed me in order to come here,” she said.

“Two are required to enter. I came years ago with another Force user with whom I shared a bond,” he replied, dragging his eyes down and turning so she couldn’t see his face. “Not like ours.”

A dozen questions sprung to mind at his explanation, but his defensive posture gave Rey pause. She would dig for more later. “Show me what we came for,” she said stiffly.

“This way,” he said, gesturing toward a rocky outcropping she hadn’t noticed before. 

As they approached, she realized with apprehension that it obscured a set of rough-hewn steps that descended into the earth. Kylo led her closer and then paused at the entrance to the steps as she looked at it from several yards back.

“We’re going in there,” he said.

“Right,” she replied. “Right.” She clenched her fists and followed him down the steps.

It only took a few steps until they were enveloped in darkness. Rey gasped as a wall of cold air hit her face and blinked her eyes in an attempt to see anything. Instinctively, she reached out her hands and hit something solid and warm. She realized it was Kylo’s shoulder and blushed fiercely, but didn’t withdraw. He paused before her, his presence crowding her in the dark on the steps.

“Ignite your saber so we can see,” he said, his voice coming from closer to her eye level than ever before since he was presumably standing on steps below her. “Just try not to impale me.”

She fumbled at her belt and grasped her saber, which was as cold as the air around them. She ignited it, holding it carefully away from her and Kylo, whose arm she now gripped with her free hand. The cerulean blue hues washed over them and lit the narrow sides of the stairwell and the crumbling steps beneath their feet, but to her dismay it only revealed that the steps continued down into the dark. Squint as she might, she could not pierce the darkness ahead to see what was before them.

“It’s a long way down,” he said, as if he read her thoughts. “But at the bottom, you will see why we came.”

It was a snug fit, but she stepped down next to Kylo so they could descend side by side with her lightsaber leading the way. The father down they went, the colder it got. There was nothing to hear but the occasional drip of condensation from the cave wall. Once she stumbled as a step she landed on crumbled beneath her feet, but Kylo steadied her instantly. 

Their breathing echoed in the small space and eased her into what was nearly a trance. The dark, the cold, the rhythmic steps, the rhythmic dripping, the breathing. She lost track of time and purpose. She could have been descending these steps since the dawn of time. Perhaps she always would be.

“Rey.” His voice interrupted her thoughts, and she realized with a jolt the stairs had ended. 

They were deep underground now, in a large open area with a dark pool. The only light came from her saber. She lifted it higher in an attempt to illuminate more of the room. She could see strange figures scrawled all over the glistening walls of the cave in dark ink. Though she guessed it was a form of writing, it wasn’t any language she had ever seen. As in the citadel, currents of air flowed around her, and if she strained, she could almost hear a whispering in her ears.

Ahead of them, piercing the pool, stood a tall stone obelisk. It too was covered in dark scribbles. Kylo started across the room toward the pool, but Rey stood where she was.

“What is this place?” she asked, staring at the obelisk.

He turned and looked at her a moment before answering. “It’s a shrine. Created by the Emperor and the last Sith Lord. His name was Sheev Palpatine.”

As he spoke, he lifted his hand. She could feel the Force flow into this space, into his body as he directed it toward the pool of water. Ripples disturbed the surface and began growing into sloshing waves. 

“He and his followers studied the prophecies written on these walls by ancient Force seers,” he continued. “They practiced dark and unnatural ways to bend the Force, to subjugate its cosmic will to serve him.” 

From beneath the surface of the water rose pillars of cracked stone, scattered across the surface of the pool in a line that reached the foot of the obelisk.

“Prophecies?” she said, peering at the dark letters.

“We have to go across,” he said once the ripples stilled and he lowered his hand to his side.

Rey took a deep breath and raised her lightsaber higher, as if she could illuminate the distant obelisk more fully. It was futile. She stepped toward the edge of the pool past Kylo and began to make her way across the wet stone now revealed. 

Once ashore, her boots crunched in the wet sand that lapped at the foot of the obelisk. Now that she stood at its foot, a massive mural of interconnected figures carved into the rock became visible. She halted and stared at it in silence. 

Hundreds of scenes were depicted over the rock. Some were gruesomely violent and some uncomfortably sensual. Some were surprisingly domestic and some depicted god-like beings striding among the other scenes and throwing them into chaos.

She peered at the images with intensity, unable to look away. The twisted shapes carved into the rock were at once grotesque and beautiful.

“The Emperor experimented with many methods of creating life, some natural and some unnatural,” Kylo said, his voice tinged with intense dislike as he gazed at the carvings by her side. “Whatever he tried, he had one goal in mind: by consuming them, to live forever.”

“What does this have to do with me?” she asked sharply, turning away from the images. She had had enough of cryptic answers. “Why am I here?”

“The Emperor has returned, and he is hunting us,” he said, turning to meet her gaze. “There is an ancient prophecy that a pair of Force users would rise and bring balance to the galaxy after years of turmoil. He believes it is us.”

Only the sound of water dripping steadily punctuated Rey’s churning thoughts at these revelations. “How can he be alive?” she asked finally, straining to remember the things she had heard about the end of the empire. “I thought Luke killed him.”

“No,” Kylo replied. He shook his head. “Few outside my family know the truth. It was Anakin himself who defeated his master, saving the son he loved.” He dropped her gaze and looked away. When he met her eyes again, his face was full of a fragile weariness. “It was not to be. My grandfather died, and Palpatine’s disciples sustained his life through the power of this dark place and a curse on the spark of love between father and son.”

Rey frowned, struggling to reconcile a story so mingled with hope and despair. “So, he’s after us now,” she said. She was always practical. “It was foolish to come here, then. We must regroup somewhere away from his reach and make a plan. We can kill him before he kills us. We can do it together.”

For a brief moment Kylo’s eyes lit up in a familiar way that made Rey’s heart leap, as they had during that pivotal moment in Snoke’s throne room. But then his jaw clenched and he looked back toward the carvings. “You misunderstand. He doesn’t want to kill us, Rey.” His voice came out oddly strangled and she watched as a gentle flush came over his cheeks. “The prophecy says we will come together to produce a lineage that will rule forever. He plans to exploit our relationship to make the galaxy his once more.”

Shock washed over Rey. “It says we will… we will.” She couldn’t finish her sentence. 

“We will be lovers,” he said, so softly she almost missed it.

Rey felt her face grow hot. “And he will use that against us,” she stammered, but stubbornly pushed on. “So that he can enact a curse to manipulate our relationship and in doing so rule the galaxy forever?” 

“All he has to do is stay out of our reach until we fulfill the prophecy ourselves,” Kylo said. “But in impatience, he may try to capture us to manipulate our ruin.” He turned back to her and shrugged in an oddly boyish way. “He is very good at that.”

Silence suspended between them for a few seconds, thick enough to cut with a knife. 

“Is this all true?” she finally asked, her voice cracking mid sentence. “Are we…. Is he….”

Kylo watched her now with guarded eyes, and shifted his feet. “I’m sorry, Rey. It’s a lot to hear. It’s something I would never wish you to be dragged into, but the Force had other plans. You needed to know.”

A strange mix of emotions washed over Rey. The rejection stung. Was she that much of a sand rat that Ben could never imagine himself with her? Her cheeks grew hot and she looked everywhere but at him. She was a sand rat, and he a Force prince if there ever was one. 

Immediately she chided herself for even entertaining such thoughts. It’s not like she was chasing after him. Their bond had always been a nuisance, a connection unwanted by either of them. And now it was something more. The understanding they shared, the magnetism she felt every time she was in his presence? It was a liability, a danger to them both and to the galaxy.

“Is there anything else,” she said, her voice more harsh than she intended. She wanted to leave this terrible place and she wanted to be alone.

He had been watching her carefully as she cycled through her myriad of conflicting emotions, and started at her cold tone. 

“One last thing to do,” he said. “There is a way to confirm that the prophecy is about us.”

Rey took a centering breath and nodded. Before they let this information transform everything they knew about the world and each other, they better make sure it was true. “How do we do that?”

Kylo stepped closer to the base of the obelisk and ran his hand over the carvings until he reached a spot in the middle, where every scene seemed to flood together at an image of two beings whose hearts were melded into one. Their bodies were splayed to the left and right in a mirror image of each other, only to join at the core. Their faces were frozen in blissful calm. He pressed a palm to their combined heart. 

“Place your hand next to mine, and find the Force with me,” he said. 

The cool rock scraped against her palm and grounded her as she closed her eyes and emptied her mind, seeking within for the light that was always there. She breathed. His presence in the Force burned bright next to her, but different. Rey felt the world fall away until it was just her life force next to Kylo’s, both beating in time with the pulsing light of Force. 

A sharp crack rang out. She jumped back and opened her eyes. A long gouge appeared in the rock, splitting the heart in two, and she watched as it opened further and revealed a glowing object within. 

After a long pause, Kylo’s hand darted inside and grasped the object, pulling it out and holding it before them.

“A holocron,” he said, before looking at her with wide eyes. He looked as surprised at its existence as she was. It cast a green light over their faces as they stared at it.

Several seconds of silence stretched between them. She didn’t have to ask him if they passed the test. It seemed obvious. 

“We should go,” she said finally, meeting his gaze briefly before turning away.

Kylo nodded and slipped the holocron into a concealed pocket in the folds of his cloak. 

Together they retraced their steps, picking their way across the water and ascending the dark stairs with Rey’s saber as their only light. By the time they reached the top, her legs were burning in protest and her breath was coming in short gasps. 

Without a word to each other, they strode toward the scorched earth and rejoined hands at the center of the interlocking loops and circles. This time, as the world shimmered around them and transformed, Rey kept her eyes locked unseeing toward his broad chest above their hands. It wasn’t until they stood firmly in the storage room on Mustafar with the red light streaming in from the window that she stirred, as if a spell had been broken. 

Something was wrong.

Her eyes flew to Kylo’s and she watched as realization hit him in turn. The shriek of his lightsaber igniting punctuated his motion as he grabbed her arm and leaned close.

“Stay near me,” he said, his voice as calm as it was urgent.

Just as she nodded and reignited her own weapon, a deafening noise filled their ears and rocked the ground beneath their feet. They stumbled to the side. Catching herself before she hit the floor, she whipped her head to look out the window. She could barely make out a squadron of ships darting through the red haze before a second strike hit. 

For a moment, the world went white, and then she was painfully aware of her body hitting the stone in the corridor that had once been separated from the place they stood by a wall. No more. A giant gash had been torn in the side of the castle, exposing the place she lay to the outside. She blinked the dust out of her eyes and sat up, rubble tumbling to the side off of her chest. To her left, Kylo was doing the same. 

“The Emperor,” he said, pushing up to stand. “He’s found us.”

“I thought you said he didn’t want to kill us,” she gasped, grimacing as she worked her mouth around the dust that coated her tongue. 

“We’d never go without a fight,” he replied, stepping over the remains of the wall next to them and pulling her up. “We have to get out of here.”

He led her down the corridor. The sounds of the battle raging around them continued to shake the castle and send them lurching on their feet, but they met no one for several long minutes. Rey was just about to believe they would make it to the hangar without interruption when they rounded a corridor and stumbled upon an entire platoon of unfamiliar soldiers. Their armor mimicked that of the First Order stormtroopers, but it was black with red regalia stamped on helmets and pauldrons. 

The soldiers immediately opened fire and Rey and Kylo fell into a kind of dance, knocking away blaster bolts with their sabers and sending them back into the crowd. Within a span of seconds, half the platoon was down. Rey felt her anxiety flee to be replaced with confident assurance. They were going to make it out of here just fine. But then the sound of static from the back of the formation interrupted her thoughts.

“We found them, General, along the west corridor near the hangar,” came the words from a soldier in a direction she could not identify. 

“Reinforcement have been deployed to your position. The Emperor’s Guard is on its way.”

Rey risked a glance toward Kylo, but he did not return her look. Instead he threw himself toward a group of soldiers and forced them to retreat closer to the hangar ahead. She followed him and guarded his back, deflecting blaster bolts with scrappy determination as his spitting saber burned through their enemies ahead.

Then she heard the unmistakable sound of several lightsabers igniting behind her, down the corridor from where they had come. She turned. An icy sensation shot down her spine as she looked at what approached.

Five figures with red lightsabers hastened toward them. For a fleeting moment, she thought they were Kylo’s knights. But as they stalked closer, she realized these were strangers. They might even be phantoms of some sort, as their edges blurred oddly as they walked. 

“Kylo!” she shouted, dropping into defensive position, not daring to take her eyes off these new enemies.

He killed the last soldier in black with a slice across the throat and turned to face them too.

“You and the girl will come with us,” said the foremost phantom, brandishing its weapon as the others halted, spread across the hall to prevent their advance. “Our master wants you alive, but it does not matter whether you are intact or conscious.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Rey saw Kylo’s grip clench around his weapon and he took the smallest of steps back. 

She got the message. The hangar was behind them. Let the fight push them closer to their goal and look for an opening to escape.

The sound of more sabers igniting behind them made her heart plummet.

Instinctively she spun and turned her back to Kylo, her brain barely registering that he did the same, and she shuddered at the realization that five more saber-wielding phantoms had appeared behind them, blocking their path to safety. 

She backed closer to Kylo until she could almost feel the heat radiating off his body. They were completely encircled by enemies. Rey had only a moment to center herself, to grip her saber tighter and to put her trust in the Force, before the shadowy figures leapt forward.

Fiery beams of red light sliced toward her from so many directions that it was all she could do to keep them away from her body. The fact that their enemies could only approach so many at time without hindering each other was the only thing keeping her alive moment to moment. That and the absolutely dangerous man who guarded her back. 

Together they blocked and dodged, maintaining a tentative sphere of safety around their bodies as they met assailants on all sides. Suddenly she spotted a weak point in the defense of her attackers and took the opportunity to make an offensive charge. She hissed with pain as her attempt backfired, leaving her open to a slice that caught her side before she could twist away. 

Her hair stuck to the sweat beading on her forehead from the extreme concentration she exerted. She doubled back on her efforts and after a few moments, one of the phantoms fell to her saber. 

So they could be killed. They were not true phantoms after all. The realization had hardly materialized in her mind before one and then another fell at Kylo’s feet.

Together they pushed back their attackers and stepped away from the bodies littering the ground to find a more stable place for their feet. 

Another fell to her saber and she felt her heart rally despite her burning lungs and arms. But then she heard Kylo fall with a thunk and a cry behind her.

She didn’t dare turn and ignore the three facing her now, but she could not help her head from whipping around to glance at him. He raised his hand and summoned the Force to knock all of the phantoms back. Rey’s clothing and hair whipped forward from the energy that he pushed, but their assailants barely stumbled. 

“Using the Force against us is pointless,” said one of the attackers who stood before Kylo with a jeer. “But go ahead, tire yourselves out.”

The enemies before her lunged a coordinated attack and Rey blocked their sabers one after the other before whipping her hand out to pull one toward her and sink her saber in, but nothing happened. Her target laughed.

“Nice try, kitten,” he taunted.

She felt Kylo lurch to his feet behind her and defend her from a strike toward her exposed back. Without skipping a beat, she lunged toward the one taunting her with guttural scream, hacking his saber away with several swings before kicking him in the gut and slicing across his face. His body fell to the ground. 

She hesitated a split second too long and another swung at her from the side, causing her to stumble and fall on the floor as she deflected his blow. For one terrifying moment after she hit the ground, her whole side was vulnerable as her saber arm flung wide. But she could barely feel panic before Kylo stepped over her and engaged three of their enemies at once above her head. 

Hauling herself out from under his legs, Rey pushed herself up from the ground just in time to hear the sickening sound of bones cracking. She spun around and saw Kylo thrown, slamming into the floor. His face was covered in blood and his chest and arms already sported several burnt gashes from shallow swipes. 

“You messed up his pretty nose,” one of the remaining phantoms said to the other, who was wiping blood from his saber hilt.

“I don’t think master cares if he comes with us pretty,” the other replied. 

Rey stared at Kylo with slowly dawning horror. He wasn’t moving. She sprung to him and crouched low, her saber now in a backhanded grip and her eyes darting between the remaining three assailants. Her head spun a little and she had to blink a few times to keep her vision from going blurry.

“Your friend seems tired,” the last one said, stepping forward as the others halted and regarded Rey as if they had all the time in the world. “Maybe you should put your weapon down and come with us before we have to break your face too.”

“Fuck off,” she growled.

The last one to speak shrugged and then all three of them launched into attack. She whirled her blade back and forth wildly, using all of her ability to defend and yet grappling with the terrible truth that if she didn’t kill at least one more of them quickly, she was going to burn out and it would be over. 

Two of them swung towards her head and she blocked with her saber. She watched as the third swung low toward her injured side. Times slowed and she cajoled her watery muscles to respond and get her torso out of the way but she was just a hair too slow. 

The crackling red blade sliced her side just below her other wound and she fell to her knees. A sound overwhelmed her ears and she realized with strange detachment that it was her own scream. Her vision blurred with pain and she fought to stay conscious, but she could feel herself slipping away. 

The phantoms loomed over her and her eyes fell on Ben’s body splayed beneath her. Hot tears splashed onto her cheeks.

All of a sudden, the shadows from her enemies were gone. Rey looked up. She blinked. She could make out blurry figures with flashing red beams of light fighting frantically a few paces down the corridor. She blinked again, and the figures came into focus.

Riatt and Siah were fighting the remaining three phantoms. They were joined by a third who was swathed in a similar asymmetrical cloak, whose face tattoos formed a frame above her eyes and whose length of white hair was wildly unbound in a manner that could only be infuriating in a fight. 

One to one, they were evenly matched. She pushed herself up to her feet and stared at them. She barely had time to form a coherent thought before the last of the phantoms fell and the three knights turned their attention toward her and Kylo.

She took an unsteady step forward, positioning her body between Kylo and the knights. She raised her saber with a shaky arm. The only thought she could form was that she was so tired. The knights stopped a few paces away from her and studied her.

“Girl, move,” the male knight said. His face soured as his eyes drifted over to her raised saber arm.

“Touch him and you die,” she hissed. A rivulet of blood trickled into her eye, and she wondered when that wound occurred. Her mind was wandering, just barely hanging onto coherence, and she knew it. She gave herself a mental shake. She was raised in the wild sands of Jakku. She would never give up.

“Rey.” 

Hearing her name gave her pause, and she hesitated, lowering her saber a fraction of a hair. Her eyes focused on the female knight from the shuttle, who had taken a step forward and extended a hand in a soothing gesture.

“Rey, we have to get him out of here,” the woman said. “He’s dying. Can’t you feel it?”

She stared at the knight, willing her eyes to focus. The knight’s dark eyes returned her gaze unflinchingly. They were beseeching. Open. Unguarded. Though she was swathed in black and bore a red lightsaber, she realized with a shock that she wasn’t much older than Rey herself.

“We will get you both out of here,” the girl said.

She blinked. She didn’t trust them, but what choice did she have? Now that her breath was slowing to a more manageable pace and she had a moment to think, she could indeed feel Kylo’s life force wavering behind her as his blood leaked out onto the stone.

“How?” she asked, her voice cracking.

“Just out this door, there’s a hallway leading to the ship Riatt and I share,” the girl replied. “Zuneh will go with us,” she added, gesturing towards the other female knight.

“More will come,” said Zuneh. “We need to go.”

Rey looked at Kylo laying beneath her and lowered her saber. “Okay.”

No sooner had the words left her lips than the male knight sprung forward. He brushed past her, nearly knocking her over with the light motion, and stooped over Kylo. She could feel him draw on the Force as he hoisted Kylo up over his shoulder.

The dark-haired knight motioned them forward. “Quickly,” she said. “Keep your saber ready,” she warned Rey as they shuffled past her through the door ahead. “It’s quiet down here now, but we don’t need any more surprises.”

They stumbled toward the hangar in silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, info dump ok or nay?
> 
> Also, yes I'm basically saying that Rey and Ben are destined (by the Force) to be a romantic couple and have sex and have babies, which could be kind of icky if done poorly, but I'm hoping by giving them agency when I can and also letting them fully explore the feelings related to this revelation, that it will not seem too problematic if that is what ends up happening? Predestination is such a difficult thing to write around. :)
> 
> Not sure when I'll be able to update this again since I'm trying to keep my other fic the priority, but I do have ideas bouncing around for the next chapter and how this will all resolve, so it will happen eventually. In the meantime, feel free to say hi on twitter.


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